Biography of Dr. John A. WestlakeChemung County, NY Biographies

Westlake, John A., M.D., city physician and police surgeon of the city of Elmira, was born at Horseheads, August
2, 1846, only son of Harrison Westlake, now of Steuben County. After a thorough academic training he turned his
attention to the study of medicine and in the spring of 1877 was graduated from the Medical Department of the University
of New York. The first four years of his professional life were passed at Cooperstown, N. Y., and he then spent
two years in Havana, Schuyler County, N. Y. From 1882 to 1886 he held the position of surgeon to the Northern Pacific
Railroad with headquarters at St. Paul, Minn. In January. 1886, he located in Elmira and in 1887 was made county
physician. At the present time he is serving the closing part of his second term as city physician. Professing
no specialty, but adhering to a general practice and the ethics of the regular school of physicians, Dr. Westlake
is, nevertheless, an enthusiast on electricity as applied to the treatment of disease, and to that element in the
advanced methods in its application in the hands of experts he looks for wonderful results. This is not a new subject
with him, for he read the first paper before the Elmira Academy of Medicine on this topic. He is a member of the
various local medical societies, the Masonic Fraternity, and the I. O. R. M. Dr. Westlalce entered the army in
1862 as a private soldier in Company C, Fifth New York Heavy Artillery, served two and one half years, and was
mustered out with the rank of sergeant major. He was married in Baltimore in 1869 to Miss Kate Call, and has two
children. Dr. Westlake is the proprietor of the Queen City Medical and Surgical Sanitarium at 1219 Lake street,
Elmira, an institution that has attained considerable prominence as a health giving and vigor restoring place of
resort.

From:
Our County and its people
A History of the Valley and County of Chemung
BY: Ausburn Towner
D. Mason & Co., Publishers
Syracuse, N. Y. 1892